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Dogs drink water from toilets, so why can't their owners warm up to the idea?

Highly-processed sewage, called indirect or direct potable reuse by water experts, is becoming more of a reality in Southwest Florida as providers scramble to find enough water to meet current and future demand.

There are two major hurdles: public perception and the unknown.

"I don't think people here are ready for the idea yet," said Andy Fenske, who operates Cape Coral's waste water system.

There's the obvious "ick" factor, and then there's the chance, however slight, that Florida's rivers, lakes and aquifers could become contaminated through processes that are supposed to protect those very resources.

Some worry, for example, that no matter how much the water is purified to rid it of bacteria and other organisms, it could still be tainted with prescription medications or other chemicals people tend to flush or pour down the drain.

Reclaimed, treated sewage is used by utilities in places like Cape Coral to conserve drinking water while providing a safe source of irrigation. Some urban areas, though, have been working on a toilet-to-tap drinking water supply for years.

"The bacteria is one of the easier things to deal with. It's all the other viruses and pharmaceuticals that are more difficult. I'm not convinced they can get that water 100 percent clean," said Linda Young, executive director of the Florida Clean Water Network. "It makes total sense to me to use reclaimed water for agriculture: we shouldn't be using drinking water aquifers to supply farms and industrial uses anyway,"

Technologies like desalination, reverse osmosis and recycled water are used around the world — Israel reuses about 70 percent of its waste water while more than 50 percent of Saudi Arabia's drinking water comes from desalination, according to a UNESCO report. Western states are warming to the idea of recycled water as states like California face an increasingly difficult task in providing drinking water.

The South Florida Water Management District has encouraged local utilities and municipalities to explore alternative water sources and develop a plan for future needs. Reverse osmosis systems can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but the long-term benefits are much better than simply avoiding the growing need for drinkable water, water managers say.

Using costly technology or unpopular techniques is understandable, critics say, for extremely dry regions. But running low on drinking water is shameful for a state that gets 5 or so feet of rain each year — just a few inches shy of what states like Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Montana combined.

"We're the water hogs of the world," said Young, who spent more than a year visiting and learning about Florida's coastal water treatment facilities. "And Florida is the water hog of the United States."

Demand will continue to rise as Florida has the third-largest population in the nation. Nearly 8 million people live in the 16-county South Florida Water District, which starts south of Orlando and includes Lee and Collier counties as well as the southeast coast, the Everglades and Florida Keys.

Astronauts drink it

Western states and nations like Saudi Arabia (which gets 70 percent of urban drinking water from desalination plants according to the Saudi embassy) have long looked at how to best conserve and use drinkable water.

Some areas in Florida have as well, but consumption rates in this district are 158 gallons per person per day for Lee and coastal Collier counties. That's nearly 10 times the rate used by people in Denmark — home of the world's most extensive water control system — according to a UNESCO report on sustainable water supplies.

Astronauts use recycled sewage water to turn an orange powder into Tang, the third-most popular food item in space, according to NASA.

Clearing up wastewater treatment(Photo: news-press.com)

Many municipalities and counties have turned to reverse osmosis — which forces brackish water through a network of membrane cells to remove the salt — as a way to meet growing drinking water demands.

"By necessity, many have went to brackish sources and reverse osmosis," said Mark Elsner, a water supply specialist for the South Florida water district. "Naples has embarked on a project where they capture surface water from Golden Gate canal, water that would be discharged, putting it at the ASR wells and using that water in the dry season to supplement the reclaim water flows." ASR stands for aquifer storage and recovery, a way to pump water into the ground, store it, and pump it back out when it's needed.

The various technologies may or may not make sense for any particular location, Elsner said. The Florida Keys, for example, is the only place in the district where ocean water is turned into fresh water. The process uses large amounts of energy and is more expensive than other methods.

"One size doesn't fit all," Elsner said. "The suite of solutions needs to be tailored to those conditions."

What about turning ocean water into potable sources?

"Technically you can do it, and it's being done in a lot of parts in the world. California has a couple of facilities in construction, but it's expensive," Elsner said.

Watery landscape

One problem is that the nation's most efficient, altered and managed drainage system works, at times, too well. The quantity of water is difficult for humans to understand. About 130 million gallons of water has been released from Lake Okeechobee in the past three months alone.

Authorities push fresh water off the landscape annually through an extensive network of pumps, canals, levees, berms and ditches that is managed by the district and the Army Corps of Engineers. Just over a century ago much of that water would set on the landscape for months at a time, flowing slowly from the north edge of the Kissimmee River south to Florida Bay.

"With our 60 inches of rain, only 7 inches of that percolates into the ground," Young said. "The rest is evaporating, running off into the ocean. So, we're not replenishing those aquifers with rain water, and every year we take more."

The South Florida water district has moved more than 130 billion gallons through the Everglades system in the last three months. Here, alternative water supply sources are a must.

"The concept is to capture it while it is available, store it underground and retrieve that water during the dry season," Elsner said. "Unfortunately, 70 percent of that falls in the wet season, so one of our challenges is 'how do we capture that water for later use.' "

Cape Coral — a success story

Cape Coral is known for its extensive canal system — one of the largest in the world. And while the grid-like development is not ideal for green space or wildlife habitat, the city has made the best of the situation by recycling freshwater from those canals and using it for irrigation — which, in turn, cuts down on the demand for drinking water.

The city already operates the oldest continually used reverse osmosis system on the planet while also using treated stormwater and sewage for outdoor uses.

The drinking water source is a below-ground aquifer (800 feet) called the Floridan, which contains water that fell in North Florida about 10,000 years ago. The city has no plans to use the toilet-to-tap concept for use inside the home because it's already doing so much to re-use water.

"We really looked ahead to make sure we were going to be prepared," said Fenske. "We built this building for expansion. Everything is ready to go."

Cape Coral's maximum demand in season is about 13 million gallons a day of drinkable water. With two treatment plants and an advanced reverse osmosis system, the city utility is capable of pumping out 30 million gallons a day.

The irrigation water is sent to homes around the city, and consumers can use it for anything from watering their lawns (there are still restrictions) to washing their cars.

"We know at build-out of the city we're looking at half a million people," said Andy Fenske, acting superintendent of Cape Coral Utilities and brother of Brian Fenske. "But the infrastructure is already in place."

A reverse osmosis filter sits on the table near Andy Fenske, left, and Jeff Pearson.(Photo: news-press.com)

Cape Coral may not have a toilet-to-tap system in its future, but certainly other parts of the state will need the technology to meet current and future drinking water supply demands.

Young said she'll continue to monitor water sources, quantity and quality and fight the toilet-to-tap push.

"I talked to people around the state and the Florida Department of Health, it's pretty encouraging the amount of effort going into that problem," she said. "I think turning that problem into an asset is possible, but for (irrigation) uses."

Connect with this reporter: @ChadGillisNo1 on Twitter.

Drinking water

by the numbers

•1.1: Billion people don't have access to safe water

•3.5: Number of Earths needed to produce water to meet current demands worldwide

•0.5: Percent of fresh water that can be used for human consumption

•1.6: Million deaths per year attributed to dirty water, poor sanitation

•176: Gallons used per day per person in Southwest Florida

Sources: United States Geological Survey, World Health Organization, United Nations, South Florida Water Management District